CiM Obsidian is an obscenely dense, dark warm grey transparent. Even over a core of clear, it is impossible to see through it, although it does thin out when used over Peace so that its true colour can be observed. It is gorgeous with silver glass, and it melts like a dream. I am very sad to report that Obsidian is a Limited Run. The reason this makes me sad is that it is almost exactly what I had in mind when I requested a transparent version of Adamantium, although I wish it was just a touch less saturated and a bit more brown. If CiM could find it in their hearts to make an only slightly less densely saturated version of this colour and add it to their line of production colours, that would make me very happy. You'll see why. Also, "I still want the dark brownish grey," she said, sounding like a broken record.

When Obsidian is rolled in silver leaf and then the silver is burnished in and burnt off, the result is a sort of dispersed silver film and it isn't really very interesting to look at. However, if you reduce and encase the silver, you get a silvery grey film with patches of blue in it. I love the glasses that do this with silver. They generally make really good base colours for silver glass.

And Obsidian is gorgeous with silver glass. It brought out nice colour in my TerraNova2 frit, and it did absolutely wonderful things with my reducing silver glass frit. I want to do more experimenting - for instance, I am very interested to know how this colour will behave with and influence the colour of Double Helix Clio. I have some more coming, so I will definitely be exploring this further.

Next to Tuxedo, a lot of the green seems to have fled from my Copper Green, and the Copper Green looks much bluer where it butts up against the Tuxedo portion of the bead.

A light outline appears around Obsidian dots and stringer lines when made on top of Copper Green, and Copper Green on top of Obsidian separates so that the stringer lines have a darker turquoise line running through the middle and the dots look slightly three-dimensional.

Obsidian is also interesting with Ivory, developing a sort of mottled, irregular brown line reaction with it. Being on top of Ivory makes Obsidian sort of shaggy-looking and the edges of some of the stringer lines almost look zig-zaggy.

Peace separates gently on top of Obsidian. Over Peace, Obsidian thins out slightly and shows us its grey-brownness.

Glass Colour Properties

About the Reaction Index

This index of reactions, or 'neat effects', is a work in process, and organizes the reactions I have observed in my test beads. I do not claim to have 'invented' any of these reactions, nor do I consider myself any kind of authority on glass reactions. In many cases, I have made up names that suit me to describe the reactions, and I'll continue to do that unless I happen to learn what it is supposed to be called.

I am a student of glass, and am taking a fairly scientific approach to my relationship with it. The results of that experimentation are here as a reference for anyone who is interested.